It is widely known that many prepared food products are susceptable to degradation when subjected to freeze-thaw conditions. This is particularly true in regard to products which contain oil emulsion type food dressings such as tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, potato salad, maccaroni salad and cole slaw. Upon freeze-thaw these products lose their consistency, flavor, and mouth feel.
One cause for this degradation is a non-reversible breakdown of the oil emulsion during freezing. Another factor is an accumulation of excess moisture within the food product during the freeze-thaw period.
Other prepared food products in addition to those mentioned above encounter deterioration upon freezing and subsequent reheating in either conventional or microwave ovens. These products include gravies, egg products such as omelettes, scrambled eggs, and fried eggs, french fried potatos, onion rings, tortillas, burritos, tacos, enchiladas, fried chicken, chicken fried steaks, chili and barbecue.
In the case of gravies, freeze-thaw with subsequent reheating causes a deterioration in terms of consistency or viscosity causing the products to acquire an unpleasant mouth feel.
Similarly, when burritos, enchiladas or similar food products are frozen and subsequently reheated, they become runny and acquire an unacceptable soggy consistency.
The main factor which appears to be accountable for this deterioration is the inability of the products to retain moisture during the various temperature transitions.
It would therefore be greatly beneficial to provide a food product stabilizer which would prevent deterioration of the food product during freeze-thaw conditions or the like, and which would be compatible when applied to or admixed with food products of the type mentioned above without altering the natural food product taste.